Indulgence in bodywork : constructions of the self through food consumption practices

• Main Author: Lim, Kang Ying
• Other Authors: Dina Marie Binwag Delias
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2017
• Subjects: DRNTU::Humanities
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/70348
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

This paper seeks to examine how middle class young Singaporean adults construct their sense of self through food consumption practices which manifest bodywork, and contribute to literature on bodywork and the sociology of the self and the body. While bodywork has assumed increasing significance in people’s everyday life, the role of food consumption practices in bodywork remains largely undetermined. Through in-depth interviews with twelve young adults, this study draws insights to the lived experiences of bodies and the construction of self through bodywork. Highlighting the role of food consumption practices pertaining to bodywork activities in both diet management and grooming and hygiene activities, I contend that young adults engage in bodywork through food consumption practices on a daily basis to express a fit and healthy postmodern self and to negotiate normative definitions of femininity and masculinity.